


Object Permanence

by Saziikins



Series: Family Ties [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Complicated Relationships, F/M, Greg is a single parent, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-04
Updated: 2014-12-04
Packaged: 2018-02-28 04:50:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2719346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saziikins/pseuds/Saziikins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Greg's wife leaves him and their two six-week old twins, Sherlock is the one he asks for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Object Permanence

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-canon, set about two years before the TV series starts. (Ish, I think. I haven't quite worked out an exact timeline for this series).   
> Part of the Family Ties series. I don't think you need to read the first part, but it might help.

He slammed the taxi door shut as he barged to Greg’s front door, banging on it hard with his fist. He waited for a moment before slamming his fist hard into it again.

“Oi!” he heard from the other side of the door.

Sherlock hit the door a few more times, only stopping when Greg yanked it open. “What the hell do you think you’re playing at?” he hissed at him. Sherlock tried to step inside but Greg stayed firm, holding him back with his body.

“You told me you needed to see me and you weren’t there,” Sherlock said, glaring at him. “Have you got a case for me or not?”

“Case?” Greg laughed bitterly, rubbing his hands against his face. “Oh good God, I’m on paternity leave, Sherlock!”

“Then why text me?”

Greg stared at him for a moment before shaking his head and retreating back into the house, leaving the door wide open. Frowning, Sherlock followed him to the living room. “What?” Sherlock asked, gesturing to him. “What exactly do you want from…” He stopped short as he looked around. The place was a mess. Tessa would never have allowed it to get into this state.

Sherlock glanced at Greg, taking in his exhausted eyes, baby sick on his shoulder and… no wedding ring. “Oh,” Sherlock said. “Well, that happened faster than I expected.”

“What was?” Greg snapped at him.

Sherlock raised his eyebrows. “Your wife leaving. I suspected she would take the children with her, however. Why did she leave them with you?”

Greg stared at him, narrowing his eyes. “Get out.”

“You told me to come.”

“Get. Out.”

Sherlock snorted. “You contacted me!”

“Get. The. Hell. Out of my house,” Greg snapped at him, taking a step closer until their faces were inches apart.

Sherlock raised his eyebrows. “That’s it?” he asked. “She just left?”

Greg’s eyes hardened and then softened, defeated. His shoulders slumped as he rubbed his face. “Yep,” he muttered, sinking down onto the sofa. “She’s buggered off.”

Sherlock shrugged. “You should have asked me about her. I would have told you that you weren’t compatible.”

“Sherlock,” Greg warned. “Don’t.”

Sherlock stayed still, glancing around. “You’ve always liked the unobtainable,” he said, walking to the fireplace and picking up the ornaments before putting them back down. “You have a propensity for danger and trouble. You like it.”

“Shut up.”

Sherlock put the dog ornament down and turned to him. “She was wrong for you. She cheated on you within two-”

“-Stop it.”

For once, Sherlock did. “Why did you text me?” he asked.

“I dunno. Thought for once in your life, you might think of someone other than yourself.”

“To do what, precisely?”

“I don’t know, Sherlock!”

Sherlock watched him, frowning. From upstairs, a baby cried. They continued to stare daggers at each other before Greg hauled himself up out of the sofa.

“Hang on,” Sherlock murmured. “Let me.” He pressed his hand against Greg’s chest, pushing him back towards the sofa. With a defeated nod, Greg slumped back down.

Sherlock turned and jogged up the stairs, walking into the nursery. He glanced between the two cots, before leaning over to carefully take Lily out. “What are you crying for?” he asked, peering at her. He sniffed her. She did not need a nappy change, thank goodness. Though, he would have let Greg deal with that matter. “Are you hungry?” he asked, frowning at her.

She kept crying.

Babies. They didn’t make life easy, did they?

Sherlock sat down in the blue tub chair, holding Lily in his arms. “Shh now. Stop that. It’s a wonder you haven’t woken your brother up with those lungs,” Sherlock muttered, relaxing as she began to quieten down. He stared down at her pink cheeks, wide eyes and wet lips. She spat a little and he pulled a face. “Charming,” he said.

He glanced up at the sound of feet dragging along the floor before Greg appeared in the doorway.

“Go to bed,” Sherlock told him. “Get some sleep. When you wake up, I’ll go home and pack some clothes.”

Greg blinked. “What?”

“Do it before I change my mind.”

Greg opened his mouth for a second. Sherlock gave him a challenging stare. Finally, Greg nodded and wandered to his bedroom.

“Stupid parents,” Sherlock whispered down to Lily. “Your mother’s a fool.” He carefully stood up and carried her back to her cot. She closed her eyes in seconds, settling back down.

Sherlock walked downstairs, beginning to pick up some of Greg’s loose socks and DVD cases from the living room floor. He walked to the kitchen and checked the contents of the fridge, sitting down with a notepad and paper to make a list of all the things he needed. He drew out several tables so he could track the babies’ feeds, sleeps and toilet habits.

It would be interesting, he thought, to monitor how different the development of two babies born within minutes of each other could be. An hour later, he was cradling Matt, feeding him with the bottle. He was almost sweet, until he was sick over Sherlock’s shirt.

Sherlock knocked on Greg’s door at just after 4pm, walking into the room before he’d had a chance to respond. He sat down on the edge of the bed. “Back to the real world now,” he said.

Greg glanced down at the covers, picking at them. “Can’t do this,” he whispered.

“You have to. You don’t have a choice.” Sherlock stood up. “I’m going home to pack some clothes. I’ll be back in an hour.”

And with that, he left, closing the front door as the crying began again.

* * *

They each held a child in their arms, Greg gazing down at Matt with a soft smile while Sherlock was more intent on measuring Lily’s fingers and taking notes.

“What the heck are you doing?” Greg asked, his voice quiet.

“Monitoring her progress,” Sherlock replied.

“Right… right. Course you are.”

Sherlock allowed Lily to reach up with her tiny hand, up towards his face. “Babies prefer to look at faces above all other things,” he said. He tilted his head. “But mostly they’re boring until they start discovering objects.”

Greg frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Well, then I can monitor how long it takes them to grasp object permanence.”

Greg blinked at him, picking up the bottle to feed Matt. “Sorry, grasp what?” he asked.

“Object permanence.” Sherlock frowned. “Didn’t you read those baby books?”

“No, Sherlock. Someone took all of them.”

Sherlock tilted his head. “I definitely gave them back.”

Greg grinned. “No, you didn’t. You took them, telling me you were going to experiment on my children when they were born and never brought them back.”

“Ah. Oh, it’s entirely possible I dissolved some of the pages in acid. And the pink book was very good for…” He trailed off. Greg did not want to know how useful that book was for snorting cocaine off.

Greg raised his eyebrows. “Don’t tell me that book has gone the same way as the Bible.”

“No, no,” Sherlock said with a laugh. “No, those pages are too glossy. They wouldn’t absorb blood in the same way.”

Greg rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help the small smile on his face. “You’re a nightmare.”

Sherlock nodded and looked down at Lily, rocking her gently. “Mmm,” he agreed. “But I’m all you’ve got.”

They both stayed quiet as the truth of those words settled in. Uncomfortable silence fell between them, Sherlock all too aware that really, they were all each other had. And currently, all the twins had too.

Sherlock wasn’t sure quite why he was allowing Greg to depend on him. Why he was allowing these two children to become used to him and reach up towards his face as though he was someone they knew. Trusted. Relied upon.

“Jesus,” Greg finally said. He sniffed and stared up at the ceiling. “God, I hate that you’re right.”

“So do I. I had plans for today.”

Greg chuckled, wiping his eyes with the back of his arm. “What were you planning?”

To experiment with blood spatters on different surfaces. To meet with a dealer. To play the violin. To take cocaine and listen to music. “Experiments with blood spatters on different surfaces,” Sherlock said. “But it doesn’t matter. It can wait.” He sighed and watched the tiny child in his arms. “She’s falling asleep again,” he whispered. “They really are the dullest things I’ve ever come across.”

Greg smiled across at him. “Considering how dull they are, you look pretty fascinated from where I’m sitting.”

Sherlock hummed and made a small note on his piece of paper. “I should take her back to bed,” he said.

“Yeah,” Greg agreed.

They looked across at each other. With a defeated sigh, Sherlock sat in silence and watched the rise and fall of Lily’s chest and the flickering of her eyelids.

* * *

With the twins in bed (again, boring), and Sherlock’s first page of notes finished, he stretched out along the sofa. Greg had the television on, but he was staring blankly at the wall rather than watching it. Sherlock glanced up at the clock. “Bed,” he said. “Go.”

“But-”

“-No. When the babies are sleeping, you should be sleeping.”

Greg sighed and rubbed his face. “I am pretty tired, I guess. What are you going to do?”

“I’m sure I’ll cope,” Sherlock replied. “Go.”

Greg nodded and stood up, rolling his shoulders. He hesitated when he walked past the sofa. He reached out and brushed his fingers against Sherlock’s forehead. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“Just go,” Sherlock replied.

Sherlock read for a while. There were plenty of books in Greg’s flat, many of them belonging to Sherlock. He’d brought them over while he’d gone through several withdrawals from drugs, forcing Greg to read them to him while he shivered and threw up. At gone midnight, he tiptoed up the stairs, peering into the twins’ room first. Content that they were fast asleep, he let himself into Greg’s bedroom. Stripping off his trousers and shirt, he slid into the vacant side of the bed.

He listened to Greg’s breathing as he stared up at the ceiling, finding some reassurance in the presence of somebody else’s warm body. Greg’s existence kept his drugs cravings at bay.

By the time Greg woke up at 3am, Sherlock had already moved to the spare bedroom, and Greg was oblivious to the few hours they’d spent lying beside each other.

* * *

Greg was struggling. On the fourth day after Tessa had gone, every cry from his six-week-old children set him on edge. Sherlock tried not to fuss over the babies too much. He was intent on only staying a few days, and Greg would have to deal with being a single parent eventually.

But it was beginning to wear him down.

“Oh for the love of…” Greg muttered, standing up as he heard the cries from upstairs.

Sherlock stood up and grasped his shoulders. They held each other’s eyes. “Go to the shops,” Sherlock finally said.

“What?”

“You’re out of milk, bread, butter, eggs and meat. Go to the shops. I’ll deal with the twins.” Greg opened his mouth as though to protest but Sherlock covered his mouth with his hands. “No arguments. Shoo.”

Sherlock let go of him and headed upstairs. After half an hour, he hadn’t figured it out. They didn’t want food. They weren’t ill. They didn’t need their nappies changing. Hugs were not soothing them. With a frustrated sigh, Sherlock carried them downstairs and set them up on a makeshift bed, wrapping them up in blankets.

He picked up his violin case. He stood on the other side of the room, closing his eyes as he held the instrument in his hands. He stood there for a few moments, trying to block out the wailing.

And then he drew out one long, soft sound, his whole body relaxing as the instrument breathed out the note. He paused. Silence. He opened one eye and studied the twins.

Frowning at them, he began to play as gently as he could. He grabbed some papers from the floor, drawing out rough bars and beginning to write down music notes.

Time stopped existing. He didn’t know what was happening, swept up in some haunting lullaby. He couldn’t think of anything but music notes and the two sets of eyes watching him.

His eyes flicked over his composition. He’d never written anything so quickly before. And in the past, he’d taken so much care of writing his compositions. This was more of a scrawl, as though he’d been so inspired, all he could do was be carried by the music. Like a man possessed. As he stood and drew the sounds out of the violin once more, he felt as though he was floating. As high as he’d been on any drug. He delivered the lullaby with steady hands, not an ounce of tension in his body.

And when he finished, he felt out of breath, swept up in it all.

“That was beautiful,” a whisper came from behind him.

Sherlock straightened, putting his violin carefully back in his case.

“What was it?” Greg asked.

“Ode to Matthew And Lily,” Sherlock said quietly.

“You… you wrote that? While I was at Tesco?”

“Mmm.” Sherlock picked up the papers, reading the notes back.

“Can you… make me a copy?” Greg asked.

“I’m sure I could,” Sherlock whispered. He glanced at the two babies, who were lightly dozing. “It did seem to work.”

Greg nodded, his face relaxing for the first time in days. “Grateful,” was all he said as he carried the shopping bags to the kitchen.

With the babies in bed several hours later, they sat on the sofa together, Greg chuckling over Sherlock’s graphs for what times the children liked to eat and sleep.

“You’ll have to keep doing it,” Sherlock said. “I need consistent data.”

Greg snorted with laughter. “As if I haven’t got enough to worry about.”

“How long have you got before you return to work?”

Greg shrugged, putting the papers back down on the table. “I’m still on paternity leave for now. I might manage to wrangle some compassionate leave or something. Jess, my sister, she only lives a few roads down and she’s got kids of her own so she knows the score. She works from home, freelancing for magazines, so she’ll be able to help out. She’s already offered.”

“That’s good.”

“I just. I never saw this coming, Sherlock. Tess, she just said. She said she’d known our relationship wasn’t working before she got pregnant. And when she got pregnant she thought it’d solve everything. And then it didn’t and she wanted out. I just never knew.”

Sherlock nodded. “As I said before. Incompatible.”

“It didn’t feel that way to me,” Greg muttered.

“She despised me,” Sherlock said.

“No, she didn’t. Don’t be ridiculous. She’d have said something.”

Sherlock shook his head, looking at him. “No. No, she wouldn’t. Because she knew you’d only fight about it. Did she know?”

“Know what?”

“How you and I met?”

Greg bit his lip before shaking his head. “Nah. She thinks I met you through work. Well, I guess I did, kind of. But she. Well, she doesn’t know our history. Or the fact that we’ve been… y’know.”

“Physically intimate.”

“Yeah.”

“Why did you never tell her?” Sherlock enquired.

“Because. I. Well, I. I guess I knew she wouldn’t like it. That you stayed here, that we worked together. That I stayed with you at night sometimes when you were going cold turkey. I suppose. I suppose I didn’t want to have to stop.” Greg frowned. “It’s not that. I don’t. You and me, I don’t miss it, I don’t want it back.”

Sherlock pressed his lips together, looking down at his knees.

“I don’t,” Greg protested.

“Nor do I,” Sherlock replied. “Except when I’m trying to avoid drugs and when you’re looking particularly vulnerable. It’s tempting to fall back on old habits.”

“That’s called taking advantage, sunshine,” Greg said with a half smile.

“You’ll notice that I’ve kept my hands to myself.”

“I’m impressed. That’s some self-control you’ve got there.”

They smiled at each other and drank their tea.

“Matt kept touching my face today,” Sherlock said after a moment. “He’s beginning to grasp the concept of using his hands to reach for things.”

Greg glanced at him. “Yeah? That a good thing?”

“It’s the right stage of development,” Sherlock said. “But it will still be a few more months before they grasp object permanence.”

“Oh yeah. What was that exactly?”

“It’s the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be observed by sight, sound, touch, smell or taste. So, when you leave the room, they don’t yet realise that you still exist when they can't see or hear you.”

Greg glanced at him and Sherlock looked up to hold his eyes. “Object permanence,” Greg whispered, a small frown between his eyes. “This thing. Between us. Do you think she knew?”

“Yes.”

Greg nodded. “I don’t think you and me have grasped object permanence,” he said, standing up. “Because as far as I can tell, we both think this is over. I can’t see it, can’t feel it. But apparently she could.”

Sherlock swallowed and stared up at him, hardly daring to breathe.

“Goodnight, Sherlock,” Greg said quietly, walking out of the room and up the stairs.

Sherlock nodded. “Mmm. Goodnight.” He leaned back against the sofa, those words still ringing in his ears. 


End file.
